Through a large cast of historical and fictional characters A Danger to the State relates one of the outstanding though little known dramas of modern history In 1773 surrendering at last to a 20 year long campaign of intrigue and calumny Pope Clement XIV suppressed the famous Society of Jesus founded 200 years earlier by St Ignatius of Loyola Just sixteen years before the French Revolution Europe s Catholic kings threatening to take their countries into schism pressured Pope Clement into destroying the strongest bulwark and the Church s most successful band of missionaries What lay behind this apparent act of madness There was no popular opposition to the Jesuits and the Kings were mainly dupes The driving force came from the writers and thinkers of the French Enlightenment agnostics and atheists that included a number of Europe s leading statesman among its members Once we have destroyed the Jesuits wrote Voltaire we should have easy work with the Church The